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Hello and welcome to The Compost Bin. I'm Compostwoman and I live with my family in rural Herefordshire. We have nearly four acres of garden and woodland, all managed organically, which we share with Chickens, Cats, Guinea Pigs and assorted wildlife. We also grow a lot of our own food, run courses in all sorts of things and make a lot of compost!

I am a Master Composter and have spent the last many many years as a volunteer Community Compost adviser with Garden Organic and my local Council. I offer talks and run workshops and events where we talk about compost, veg growing, chicken keeping, cooking, preserving and sustainable living. We also make crafts and have fun. We try to live a more self sufficient lifestyle here, as best we can, while still having a comfortable life and lots of fun.To learn more about us click on the About Compostwoman tab and remember to click on the photos to make them full size!

Sunday, 10 February 2013

A typical busy Sunday - chickens, compost and cats.

I started off doing two loads of washing on Sunday morning as well as a general tidy round - I was going to give the sitting room a major tidy up but it got too difficult to manage with all of us in the house so I decided it could wait until tomorrow - also the weather was quite nice in the morning so I wanted to get on with some outside jobs.

I went out to clean out the hens and found the blasted rats had tunnelled inside the hen run AGAIN! We have traps and bait boxes down but the wet weather has meant a rise in the numbers actually trying to get into the hen house rather than just quietly living in the wood and around us ( but not bothering us) They upset the hens and will take an egg if they can.

So we moved the hen house and dug out the rats nest - no rats inside but a nest and lots of tunnels. As always hens came to investigate the digging.

then Compostman dug a hole and we put weld mesh vertically so it went
about 12 inches downwards .

We also laid weld mesh under the hen house
before putting it back in place - lets see if the little so and so's can
dig through that!

I then (finally) got on with cleaning out the hen houses and the run.

All the dirty straw and paper went into the new compostbins.

And a fresh load of bedding put into the houses and the Mega Hen Pen walk in run. As always - the chickens were investigating what I was up to!

I filled up one of the new bins completely and the other one is 3/4 full - I need to get on and build the rest of the new bins pronto I think :-)

While I was doing this Compostgirl cleaned out her guinea pigs and then we all went inside and because it turned dull and wet we had a relaxing rest of the day with crafts and reading and computer work .

After evening animal rounds we had dinner and settled down to our Sunday night family viewing of "Countryfile" and "Call the Midwife " in front of the woodburner with the cats sitting on top of us - one for each of us.